001    /*
002     * Sonar, open source software quality management tool.
003     * Copyright (C) 2008-2012 SonarSource
004     * mailto:contact AT sonarsource DOT com
005     *
006     * Sonar is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
007     * modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public
008     * License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
009     * version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
010     *
011     * Sonar is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
012     * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
013     * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU
014     * Lesser General Public License for more details.
015     *
016     * You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public
017     * License along with Sonar; if not, write to the Free Software
018     * Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA  02
019     */
020    package org.sonar.channel;
021    
022    public abstract class Channel<OUTPUT> {
023    
024      /**
025       * Tries to consume the character stream at the current reading cursor position (provided by the {@link org.sonar.channel.CodeReader}). If
026       * the character stream is consumed the method must return true and the OUTPUT object can be fed.
027       * 
028       * @param code
029       *          the handle on the input character stream
030       * @param output
031       *          the OUTPUT that can be optionally fed by the Channel
032       * @return false if the Channel doesn't want to consume the character stream, true otherwise.
033       */
034      public abstract boolean consume(CodeReader code, OUTPUT output);
035    }